...courtesy of my faulty internet connection. Nothing wrong with the game this time around, but me actually getting completion benefits from managing a vicious Gaan'Telet run is destined to fail as often as not.

For a few minutes there, at least, I could feel really good about this:

So, err, I haven't been following the Vicious Gaan'Telet situation so I have no clue whether that is something to be proud of or just bussiness as usual. It was regular Vicious GT, not Vicious Token Vicious GT.

The god I prepped was GG just for Humility and a blank 5 mana Enlightment due to piety overflow (and a very late and complicated poison cure). Scummed for GETINDARE and nothing else. Joined Taurog for the armor at some point, then joined Drac for 2 hits of sanguine and blood shield. Had patches for 3 hits, and used consensus to swap to GG for the poison cure, then desecrated Taurog to go back to Drac. Still had 175 damage after Taurog desecration, and 200 before that. 300 with spirit sword. Prepped extra health, sword + translocation, dragonshield, patches, [STR potion, fortitude + salve, whoopaz], GG and was a human. Found a soul orb, had trouble with poison (would've been the other way around otherwise).

Anyway, Transmuter is barrels of fun, and really, really strong. I don't think he's broken, to be honest. He really reads as:

To be fair, though, the Transmuter's CP bonus really stacks up in Gaan-Telet in a way it can't on most other dungeons. Still, good job with that one.

I guess now that we have four versions of Gaan-Telet and Halls of Steel it might be harder to distinguish them. We have hard mode, hard mode with vicious token, vicious mode, and vicious mode with vicious token...

Darvin wrote:To be fair, though, the Transmuter's CP bonus really stacks up in Gaan-Telet in a way it can't on most other dungeons. Still, good job with that one.

True, true... But then again, I also did most other places with him without the Dragonshield or any of the VGT perks, so this was more a case of: "I wonder what happens if I just do the exact same thing in VGT...". Ty for the gj, I reccomend the run to any vet - it's a fun skill tester. EDIT: Not taking humans can even be fun if this feels exploity (it took me by surprise too).

And, err, how IS everyone doing in the regular VGT completion department?

Darvin wrote:I guess now that we have four versions of Gaan-Telet and Halls of Steel it might be harder to distinguish them. We have hard mode, hard mode with vicious token, vicious mode, and vicious mode with vicious token...

Yeah

EDIT: Important thing I forgot to mention - Inner Focus CP stacking wasn't what won this one. I didn't even spam all that much, and I'd say I got maybe 3 or 4 cap pops worth of CP out of Inner Focus. The big thing was that initial LEMISI letting me save a ton of resources, a very early Gloves of Midas allowing a huge buyout (and with CB and Fire heart in there my total CP from items was lacklustre to be honest) and the big sinergy between Inner Focus + Spirit Sword + Conversion Fodder + GETINDARE. Really, GETINDARE was the most important thing, I could've won this with 40-50% attack less. There was a small heap of stuff that would've made it better, BYCEPPS for one thing...

Inner Focus allows you to TIME your conversions properly to get use out of spirit sword. Hit a guy with a fireball, pop the cap with a piece of conversion fodder (or in GT a sensation stone), hit for a lot, GETINDARE for the win. Regen 9 mana, repeat...

I have a Monk and a vampire win there. VGT is a project and I've never had the energy to approach it with something that I didn't feel had a decent chance of winning. The Monk was a resistance stacker. Started with the Dragon Shield and Patches. I got lucky and found both Venom Ward and Soul Orb in the shops, so I kept Patches till the bitter end. You gain something like 20 levels over the course of that dungeon, and Patches triggers with each level up event, even if you don't actually gain a level.

The Vampire was a dedicated conversion specialist. I think I got 11 levels of Life Steal by the end. I packed a Dragon Shield and a Really Big Sword for efficiency, and Patches for the various buffs and as a way to get enough gold to keep the conversions rolling in. The thing you really want to see on a Vampire run is a high level Meatman or two. That's probably more important than any shop purchase.

If I were to try to tackle it again with a new class, I'd probably take a Crusader with an aim towards stacking resistances and abusing the Scarred trait.

Really, I think that VGT pretty much requires at least middling amounts of resistances and good melee power. I'd be surprised to see caster heavy approaches work, given how high the monster health gets and how distant the level up milestones eventually become.

Especially when you can get randomly screwed over by the last floor having counter fireball. The other reason I don't like VGT is it is too random. It's difficult enough that you need things to go your way, but between gods, enemy composition, random curses (seriously 3 curse stacks before Horratio with no popcorn is AWFUL) there is too much need for luck. Not to mention a lot of builds need certain items like soul orb or viper ward.

The first time I got to Horatio, he had the counter fireball trait. I didn't know how the curses worked back then and just thought that that was a native trait of his. On my next attempt I converted Fireball early on because I though it would be useless and was confused when Horatio couldn't counter fireballs anymore.

Also, bloodless Horatio versus a Vampire is pretty much an auto-lose.

I agree about Venom Ward and Soul Orb. I even made a special super-selective profile optimized for VGT experiments, unlocking the VW, SO, and not much else. I can't wait until this game is downloadable and our save files are things that we can copy-paste. That will make maintaining different specialty profiles way easier.

Honestly, are the curses necessary? Could they at least pair up each curse with a certain floor (so bloodless or counter fireball Horratio doesn't screw you over)? VGT is so crazy it isn't even worth going in there with most classes. I know it was designed to challenge vets, but now we have vicious mode. I say nerf it. Vicious vicious to people who want a real challenge, and vicious VGT becomes maybe possible.

I think if it were less random, we'd just figure out the optimal sequence and be able to demolish it like every other place. I think it does need a few nerfs eventually, but it works as a "mini-roguelike". Beating it with a vicious token, though, I'm not sure even vampires could do it.

Well, in case it helps anyone, here's what I've learned:

1) There are 7 guaranteed curses that even the Crusader can't dodge - Three from the curse floor, 1 from the "all debuff" floor and 3 from the +5% resist scroll (those can be avoided, but it's unlikely because you need resists). There is also a boss with curse and he can mess you up. So you want to keep quite a bit of popcorn around, since bloodswells also curse you.

2) The "terrible" floors are "Fully Revealed" (can be a game over for anyone), "Bloodless" (If you get it at the wrong time", "No XP" (can also kill you), and "First Strike" (if found late). The floor with the 10 DP scimitar can also mess you up if you run into it early

3) You need a burn salve and a fortitude potion. And you need to time their use carefully since there is a floor where you get 1 weakening and 1 corrosion, but there is a boss with weakening blow and a boss with both corrosion and weakening blow. You also want to time your burn salve to be able to desecrate earthmother, most likely.

4) You probably need 45-65 resists on anything. You also probably need either a soul orb or a venom ward. Patches is broken by default, but he eats inventory space, and dragonshield is a must (allthough I've managed the vamp without it, but I could worship pactmaker that time). Starting out with GG simply for Humility, Enlightment and a ton of piety worked out well for me.

5) Inventory space is a huge issue, so being really carefull about what you pick up and when is of paramount importance. I didn't take a compression seal, going for the transmutation + sword, but I got lucky with finding the compression seal floor early. Finding Gloves of Midas also seems like a bit of a must.

6) Stuff you can't do without - GETINDARE, goes without saying. Burndayraz to a degree. Thats 2 slots. You don't want to start with a healing and mana potion, because your small item slot will fill up really fast. If you take a STR potion and blow it quickly, you'll have burn salve, fortitude and whoopaz and room for a soul orb/ward and a free slot for picking up something else or compressing something else. Dragonshield will take one more slot, which leaves 2 slots. One of those will most likely be gloves of midas or something else you want to have temporarily, and one of those should be empty or temporary so you can pick up stuff off the floor or buy conversion junk. That is, it's 6 slots unless you find the compression seal on time. Balanced Dagger might also be a decent pickup, as is the +1 piety er kill thing.

So if you can't go through the dungeon on getindare, burndayraz, dragonshield, patches and gloves/troll heart/dwarven gauntets, and a freeish slot - then no point trying, most likely.

Ultimately, you'll convert patches and the gloves, which means you'll have GETINDARE, BURNADYRAZ, Dragonshield and the small items (3 slots because something is compressed). What you want in those 3 slots (eventualy or for the boss fight) is any of the following - BYCEPS, Taurogs Armor, Tower Shield, Martyr Wraps, Whurgarble, HALPMEH, Platemail, Dwarven Gauntlets, Venom dagger (?), Piercing Wand, Tri-Sword (maybe) and maybe some other stuff.

7) If you're going for resists all you need is a resource free piety farm (say, GG), Dracul for everything, and possibly Taurog for the armor. Body pact from pactmaker looks good in theory, but messes up your Drac Game. Earthmorther's a free desecration. If going paladin, I suppose Drac is the way to go allthough there could be other options (GG + Pactmaker FTW? TT for tons of XP and Poison?)

I thought that we'd taken the random room effects out of Horatio's floor?

Darvin wrote:I guess now that we have four versions of Gaan-Telet and Halls of Steel it might be harder to distinguish them. We have hard mode, hard mode with vicious token, vicious mode, and vicious mode with vicious token...

Heheh, yeah, a notation evolution is needed. Like putting (V) into dungeon titles for the shorthand: (V)VGT, VHoS, (V)VHoS, etc